“Chop Suey Buys Plane for London-Tokyo Hop” read a headline in the New York Times in 1930. The airplane was bought by Zansaku Azuma who had a chop suey restaurant on Fair Oaks Avenue in Pasadena.

Azuma had been born in the Ishikawa Prefecture in Western Japan in 1893. His family hoped he would enter the priesthood but he declined and took off for Kyoto and a variety of jobs including journalism. One story says he became interested in aviation when he saw an American flyer, Art Smith, doing aerial stunts.

A patron in Japan financed his move to the United States in 1916 where he learned to fly and ran restaurants. During World War I, Azuma was a mechanic with the American air force. He was a friend of American pilot Art Goebel who once flew under Pasadena’s Colorado Street Bridge.

Inspired by Charles Lindbergh’s transatlantic solo flight in 1927, Azuma bought a used Travel Air biplane, converted it for a single seat and equipped it with large fuel tank. He painted it red and named it “City of Tokyo.”

Azuma planned to fly first to New York, then disassemble the plane to be shipped to London. There he would assemble the plane, and fly to Tokyo via France, Belgium, Germany, Lithuania, Russia, Siberia, China and Korea. He took off from Los Angeles on June 29, 1930. He landed in Tokyo on August 31, having flown 15,000 miles in 200 hours in the air.

Azuma was greeted by a large crowd in Tokyo and was presented with a trophy by the Japanese Emperor.

Azuma returned by ship to California in January, 1931. He was met by members of the Japanese community who staged a banquet for him.

He said when returning to Pasadena that if his chop suey business held up, he would try a non-stop trans-Pacific flight. Even with the help of Japanese newspapers, he never raised enough money.

After World War II, Zensaku Azuma, known as the Japanese Lindbergh, was the first to discover Uranium deposits in Japan. He touted its health benefits and grew vegetables in soil containing Uranium.

His hometown in Japan remembers him today with a monument and an annual paper airplane contest.